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I said nothing, tamping down the wild, feral leap my heart made.
“Oh?” I said, twisting my hands behind my back.
“There’s nothing I can do about it,” Vick said again, fixing me with a gray eye that felt like a gimlet. “But I have three daughters myself so I felt obliged to come and warn you.”
His craggy face looked worried.
“Be careful,” he said. “I know he’s your brother. I know you want to help him. But I don’t want you getting in too deep. Torin Reilly is a remorseless killer. He’s killed multiple times and he will kill again. I don’t want you to get ensnared and trapped with your kindness and lose your sense of right and wrong.”
I forced my head to nod, forced my frozen lips to say something, anything, to get him to leave.
Vick wasn’t inclined to stay, and after a few more searching glances at me he left. But when he was on the porch, he turned around for one last piece of advice.
“Think of your father,” he urged. “What would he say? He wouldn’t want you to do anything wrong just because your brother is involved.”
I nodded again. I don’t know what lie I said.
Maybe it was of course not. Or good point.
I watched him drive away, the parole officer’s warnings reverberating in my head.
Torin Reilly is a remorseless killer.
I knew he was.
My fingers closed over my tea kettle, my eyes rapidly flicking around the expensive spotless white modern furnishings in my home.
I realized I was unconsciously evaluating each room in the house, my eyes noting and remembering what was mine.
What I would take with me.
How had it come to this? How had I come to accept this? Didn’t I have the perfect life here? I looked around the house. Each room was light and airy, furnished with sleek white couches, gleaming steel appliances, all the latest smart technology.
And now I was planning to give it all up? For my dark, unhinged multiple murderer brother?
I shook my head, trying to shake some sense into myself.
Were there any emergency psychologists available? Maybe I could get an appointment to figure out why I was so fucking messed up that I thought running away with my brother the felon was a good idea?
I heard the garage door open and Drew came in. Even though I had just broken up with him, he came over to me and gave me a huge bear hug.
For a moment I let my brain drift to what would happen if I chose to stay here. If I managed to send Torin away (and how would I do that? my brain briefly wondered, but I shelved that thought) I could stay with Drew and go on as we had been. But even as I imagined it, I felt a heavy weight settle in my belly.
I could never do it.
The moment I had seen my brother again, the axis of the world had shifted. The bright suburban neighborhood, the new kitchen appliances, the gardeners, the landscapers, the neighborhood barbecues, the big ring, the jewelry, all these things had no pull on me. And Drew had no pull on me either. He was a nice man, with eyes that crinkled up with laughter and I was. . . a bad person.
I had refused to call the police when my brother had choked Russ. I hadn’t turned him in when he killed someone. And I never would. I could never give Torin Reilly up.
Oh, and I was fucking him.
I toyed with the idea of lying to myself and saying I had just done it because he had forced me to. That would make me feel better, wouldn’t it? My brother had pinned me down, his big hands trapping me on a table in the shed, against a wall, in the car.
But the lie wouldn’t take. Because every cell in my body knew I had wanted his hands on me.
And I went into my bedroom and began to take my books off the shelves.
Chapter Fifteen
